The State Of JetsNation: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Nine months ago, Garret Hohl stood (well, typed actually) before you all and gave you the State of JetsNation and it was doing pretty good.

Garret was brought in as the Managing Editor of JetsNation in February of 2015 and instantly brought a huge amount of credibility to this little corner of the internet. Before Garret signed on, JetsNation.ca was… Well let’s just say it was “underwhelming” and leave it at that.

Bringing in such a well respected voice within the Jets (and really, all of hockey) community such as Mr. Hohl was a bit of a game changer for JN. He was able to bring in some great writers as well as myself and for the next year and a half, under his leadership we started growing.

Garret though was (and is, but more on that in a moment) a man in demand and before the start of this current season, he took a step back to focus on other projects he was working on. With Garret taking a step back, he brought in Jacob Stoller to be the new Managing Editor of JetsNation.

I think it’s safe to say we didn’t miss a beat. Jacob continued to bring in a few more writers, helped establish The JetsNation Podcast as well as brought in a new level of coverage of the Manitoba Moose and was even a credentialed member of the media covering the club. Our numbers in terms of readership continued to grow and were double and sometimes triple of what they had been in years past.

Jacob has a tremendous passion for writing and for hockey and it’s that first passion that has led him to the very exciting opportunity of going to school at Ryerson University this fall to take part in their Sports Media program.

Meanwhile, one of Garret’s projects is starting to really take off. HockeyData Inc was recently announced as being hired by the Washington Capitals to provide consulting services.

Everyone in the Nation Network is extremely proud of both Garret and Jacob.Unfortunately for us, this also means JetsNation gets less of both of them as they move on to their fantastic opportunities.

Garret will be taking a complete leave of JetsNation and the Nation Network after the end of his “Pilot’s Logbook” series and his work with the draft profiles you’ve seen on our site. I can’t begin to state how much his work with analytics will be missed here. He’ll of course still be on the Twitter machine and we’ll no doubt bug him for nuggets of statistical goodness there.

Jacob is stepping back himself as the summer begins to vacation and cut loose a bit before heading off to Ryerson, but not completely disappearing from JN. He’s going to focus a little more on providing great written content for us and for the Nation Network as a whole, while also working on his own side projects and his own podcast before moving to Toronto where I have 3:1 odds that he becomes the next Bob McKenzie.. Or the next Jay Onrait or at the very least .

So what does this all mean for JetsNation?

Well, for starters… I am now  your fearless leader as I took over Managing Editor duties back at the start of May.

Wait! Don’t run away yet!

I can’t tell you how humbled I am (not to mention a teensy bit intimidated) to follow two great gentlemen in this position. It feels a little bit like we’ve gone from Andrew Ladd and Blake Wheeler as captains and now we’ve put Tyler Myers in charge.

But despite that, I feel confident with the staff we do have that we’re going to move on to even bigger and better things as a blog and as a community. We’re re-organizing a few things behind-the-scenes and we have tremendous support from everyone at The Nation Network.

We’re also on the look out for new talent who are passionate about hockey and (this kind of goes without saying I suppose) the Winnipeg Jets.

We have multiple ‘positions’ available for you to lend your writing talent. Even if writing may not be your thing but you still want to help, please feel free to contact me via Twitter and let’s talk!

In closing, I want to thank Garret, Jacob, our staff and all of you for making the 2016-17 season JN’s best yet. We saw significant growth over the season both in terms of readership and social media attention, but that was just the start! We’re looking to make 2017-18 even better with new ideas, new initiatives and hopefully (please God hopefully, Chevy for once please..) a playoff bound hockey team that everyone can get excited about.

Go Jets Go!